Federal officials and scientific experts say the virus detected in retail milk samples may be inactive and unable to cause an infection.
Federal officials say the risk to the public remains low after the Food and Drug Administration announced Wednesday that tests of commercially available milk detected traces of bird flu.
The announcement comes amid a national outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) among dairy cows that was first confirmed late last month. The disease, which is very contagious and often fatal in avian populations, has spread to herds in at least eight states. At least one person who was in contact with presumably sick animals also caught the virus.
But government officials and scientific experts say so far there is no evidence of infectious virus in pasteurized milk.
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Jeanne Marrazzo said Wednesday in a call with reporters that tests conducted on retail milk showed that there was genetic material from the virus.
Efforts to grow the virus from those samples indicated that the virus was not infectious or « alive, » Marrazzo said, adding that testing was only conducted on a small set of samples.
« To date, we have seen nothing that would change our assessment that the commercial milk supply is safe, » the FDA said in a statement.
